Innovative Solutions to Advancing Gender Equity in Kenya
Across Kenya, locally led organizations are developing solutions to some of the most persistent barriers facing women and girls, from access to health and education to economic opportunity and gender equity. The challenge is not simply finding approaches that work. It is figuring out what it takes for those approaches to reach many more people without losing the qualities that made them effective in the first place.
This session brings together Kenyan-led organizations and philanthropy to examine that question from both sides.
Each organization will ground the conversation in a solution it is already delivering: the problem it was designed to address, what it actually takes to make the model work, and what stands between its current reach and greater scale. Rather than treating scale as an abstract ambition, the discussion will look at the practical realities underneath it, including funding, organizational capacity, partnerships, evidence, government engagement, community trust, and the choices organizations face as they grow.
A philanthropic partner will examine the same challenge from the other side. What makes a locally led organization or solution investable? What evidence do funders need before backing growth? Where can philanthropic capital genuinely help? And what does philanthropy misunderstand about the costs, timelines, and trade-offs involved in taking a solution from one community to national reach?
Too often, these conversations happen in separate rooms: practitioners talk about what scale requires while funders talk about what they are prepared to fund. This session puts those perspectives into the same conversation and creates space to interrogate the assumptions on both sides.
What to expect
A candid, discussion-led conversation grounded in real Kenyan experience. Participating organizations will each introduce a solution and the specific barriers they encounter in trying to reach more people. A philanthropic partner will respond from a funder perspective, creating a starting point for a wider conversation about what scale actually demands.
The room will have time to question, challenge, and add to what it hears. The aim is not to present a single formula for scaling gender equity solutions, but to surface where practitioner and funder perspectives align, where they diverge, and what might need to change on both sides.
Who this is for
This session is for individual and institutional funders, practitioners working in women’s health, education and gender equity, locally led organizations, development professionals, and others interested in what it takes to finance and grow solutions rooted in communities.
What participants will get out of it
A grounded view of what Kenyan-led organizations actually need to take effective solutions to greater scale
Insight into how funders assess organizations and opportunities for growth
A clearer understanding of where practitioner and philanthropic assumptions about scale diverge
Practical perspectives on the role of capital, evidence, partnerships, government, and organizational capacity
A chance to question what “scale” should mean for locally led gender equity solutions
Featuring
ZanaAfrica
SHOFCO
Amref Health Africa